Abstract

The engineered bamboo/wood composites (EBWCs) studied in this work included solid wood, wood-based composites, and bamboo-based composites. The basic characteristic of these products is that they have similar stress-strain relationships in the parallel to the grain direction because of their similar microscopic structures. The asymmetric stress-strain relationship in tension and compression presents a great challenge for the inelastic analysis of intermediately slender EBWC columns. In this study, a novel model was developed for the inelastic analysis of biaxially loaded intermediately slender EBWC columns with rectangular cross sections. The model provides a step by step method to evaluate the nonlinear responses and load-carrying capacities of these columns. Experiments on parallel strand bamboo columns loaded with biaxial eccentric loads were conducted to validate the model. Good agreement between the experimental and predicted results was achieved. The innovative elements of the model were the asymmetric properties of EBWCs in tension and compression, and its simplicity, which lends itself to implementation in engineering design calculations. The present work is an extension of a previous study by Huang et al. (2015a), and its objective was to develop an innovative inelastic analysis model evaluating biaxially loaded intermediately slender EBWC columns with rectangular cross sections.

Keywords

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Martin A. Hubbe, (919) 513-3022, hubbe@ncsu.edu;
Lucian A. Lucia, (919) 515-7707, lucian.lucia@gmail.com